The governor and others hail the state's compliance with the April 1 deadline.

THE question:

Couldn't a timely budget be a better one?

Monday came in New York with a state budget in place and Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials still preening about what in another place at another time would be nothing more than the politics of the expected.

Meeting that April 1 deadline for three years in a row does, indeed, spare state government the unrelenting glare of embarrassment that came when budgets routinely were weeks if not months late. Credit the governor and legislative leaders with an ability to meet their deadline.

What's wrong with this budget can't be detected by a look at the calendar. It instead requires a deeper examination of how the state spends its money.

Most significantly, unfairness persists in the expenditure of aid to public schools. There is more money, in excess of $30 million in what's known as "bullet aid," for schools in Assembly or Senate districts lucky enough to be represented by a member of the legislative majorities. So much for merit or need. Shouldn't we wait until schoolchildren are old enough to vote before we make political casualties out of them?

A clean break with the fiscal follies of the past also requires more aggressively confronting the politicians' slush funds. About $28.7 million will pay for 1,900 pork spending projects that just won't die.

That's not a lot of money, not in a $135.1 billion budget. The problem is that the failure to have the appropriate government agencies allocate money for everything from economic development to arts grants to aid to local fire departments strips some of the luster off a budget that's being hailed for its symbolism. Even the most worthwhile projects, when paid for this way, reek of politics.

A governor who once effectively declared war on what are almost poetically known as legislative member items needs to get his veto pen ready. Good government activists and more passive taxpayers alike can't be entirely "hap-, hap-, happy" — to borrow the jargon of a governor who's usually notably more articulate — until pork spending is as obsolete as budgets passed in late summer.

What, finally, can we say to the victims of a $90 million cut in spending on program for the developmentally disadvantaged? It's hard to reconcile that when our budget makers believe the state can afford $350 million in 2014 in tax rebates, or, more accurately, down payments on legislators' re-election campaigns. That further adds to the indignities that persist for such vulnerable New Yorkers long after politicians cease with their self-congratulations.

Barely two months ago, when Mr. Cuomo made his budget proposal, he was talking about not only fiscal stability but social progress as well. So here we are in the season when state leaders used to be still struggling to pass an overdue budget. Welcome as this respite from that dysfunction is, it could be a time now for introspection about how to better live up to those ideals.